


Studies in Sunshine and Shade

by Blacksquirrel



Category: Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
Genre: 18th Century, Character of Color, Community: choc_fic, First Time, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Military, Romance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-30
Updated: 2007-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:51:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blacksquirrel/pseuds/Blacksquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fronsac and Mani encounter human nature in extremity during the French and Indian War. Through violence, greed, passion, difference, and fear, they struggle to define themselves, find each other, and chart a moral course through a web of cruelty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Studies in Sunshine and Shade

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, kitsune13 offered unfailing support and invaluable con crit; without her the he-he problem would have become nearly insurmountable. If you haven't seen "Brotherhood of the Wolf" I do heartily recommend it. However, in place of viewing, pictures of the film's striking color palate and beautiful people can be found at [The IMDB](http://imdb.com/title/tt0237534/photogallery-ss-0) and this [Fan Page](http://alicia-logic.com/capspages/caps_viewall.asp?titleid=60), instructions to download Gwyneth's amazing vid Fraternité can be found [here](http://www.gwynethr.net/), and the full script is available in only slightly awkward English translation [here](http://www.markdacascos.de/filme/pdl/ss/script-engl.htm). The [Official Brotherhood of the Wolf Homepage](http://www.brotherhoodofthewolf.com/) contains a wealth of strange resources, tons of pretty pictures, and downloadable wallpapers and screensavers.
> 
> Just in case this isn't entirely apparent in the text, Italics = English - a little play on the fact that the film was in French, and English is spoken only as a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) language by all of the characters here. Thus, from the POV of these characters, words spoken in English have been italicized as foreign.
> 
> Prompt: Choc_fic September 23 - 2. Brotherhood of the Wolf, Fronsac/Mani: Mirror: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." -- Emily Brontë

** Studies in Sunshine and Shade**

When Grégoire stepped onto the soil of New France he clutched a worn copy of "Elements of the Philosophy of Newton" by Voltaire, and immediately plucked a broad purple leaf for his first pressing. The docks had reeked of rotting fish and the press of humanity, but Grégoire imagined that he could detect a sweet breeze beckoning from the Northwest. In Quebec City he won modestly at cards, flattered ladies, and lent a shocking new essay by Rousseau to the Governor's son. Yet, with a thousand pretty assurances that he would surely stay in such pleasant society if not for the call of duty, Grégoire loaded his trunks the moment his papers had received the appropriate seals and signatures, and set off for his great unknown.

The valleys and mountains which met him beyond Quebec's bustle did not disappoint nearly ten years of anticipation. On his first expedition Grégoire filled every sketchbook and clipping case he carried mere weeks into the voyage, leaving him to draw frantic studies of charging caribou or the elegant arch of a wildflower's stem on tree bark, supply containers, the lining of his trunk, and, on one occasion, much to the amusement of his Acadian guide, on the leg of his trousers. M. Broussard’s laughter evaporated days later when he discovered their coffee sack had been converted into a collection of medicinal plants.

All too soon Quebec City again loomed, and Grégoire drew out a cravat and social smile from the very bottom of his traveling trunk to fulfill every petty local dignitary's appetite for wilderness tales. Few had the stomach for all five volumes of the notes and sketches he'd compiled. After months away, he found himself the beneficiary of a deluge of gossip, old and new. The torrent of infidelity, betrayal, and mésalliance only intensified the itch burning just beneath his skin that no amount of fine soap could wash away, no liquor could suppress.

In a few short days he’d restocked, taking care to pack more notebooks and an extra sack of coffee. Even with those reassurances Broussard declined to accompany Grégoire again, so he set off with a native of the Huron tribe named Heno, this time to the Southwest along the St. Lawrence. He imagined himself as one of Rousseau’s subjects, a man free from the constraints of his civilization, or of any civilization. Gliding along the river past Iroquois, Huron, Algonquin, Montagnais, and French voyageur settlements, Grégoire dreamed that he and Heno had became their own separate tribe called wanderer.

Heno remained with him on one expedition after another, including an ill-fated attempt to scout the Northern forests that ended with a deep gash across Grégoire’s shoulder and a bear claw for Heno’s belt. They told each other wild stories, few of them true, in an increasingly eccentric blend of French, English, Wyandot, and Cree. Grégoire fell comically short as a hunter, and though Heno constantly teased him for reaching into his satchel for a charcoal in situations better suited to a knife, they settled into an easy rhythm, Grégoire thankful for his companion’s expertise and wit, Heno fascinated by Grégoire’s childlike captivation with everything they encountered, waterfalls to weeds.

After their fourth excursion and over two years together, eating, sleeping, swimming, bleeding, and dreaming with no other, sheltered from people’s squabbles and prying eyes, the day they returned to check in and resupply offered no ill omen looming on the horizon and the sky remained light. They logged their samples and notebooks as usual with a casual synchrony, but when they appeared at the Governor’s offices to make the customary arrangements, no members of the lower nobility milled about to press them into attendance of a string of dreary social functions, and the Governor himself did not burst through doors to shout "Grégoire" in his gratingly obsequious manner. Instead they waited for long minutes in a deserted corridor, then followed an escort through unfamiliar doors to find the Intendant in grave conversation with an extravagantly dressed military man.

When Intendant Bigot introduced him as Chevalier de Fronsac, Grégoire almost didn’t recognize the name, and he startled when General Montcalm sneered after shaking his travel-worn hand. Sketching a ritualistic apology for the intrusion, Grégoire asked after the renewal of his exploratory charter as sick unease spread heavily through his limbs with every severe shake of the Intendant’s head. "I’m afraid we can no longer afford to fritter away our resources on catalogues of flora and fauna," Bigot intoned, passing Grégoire a packet of documents, the top of which detailed his impressment into the army.

"My charter comes directly from the King," Grégoire protested.

"As does this war," came the General’s rejoinder, "Surely I do not witness a Knight who refuses to fight for his king?"

"Certainly not," Grégoire replied woodenly, as the confining years spent in study, court politics, and careful cultivation of family connections flashed before him. All wasted now, his grand project at an end. Inclining his head in a stiff bow, Grégoire left with the packet of orders crushed in his hand and Heno trailing behind.

Out in the hall Grégoire collapsed, blinded by a panicked vision of the landscape he’d so painstakingly described soaked in the blood of the fellow travelers and tribesmen he’d grown to love. He saw rivers of thick red, poisoning the precious earth and all the wonders that thrived there.

Heno grasped his shoulders and shook him. "You may not have been a soldier, but I know that you’re no stranger to combat. This is not an end for you." Grégoire shivered and clasped his hand to Heno’s, "You are right. We’ll get through this too, together," he said, clarity returning.

But Heno stepped back, releasing him abruptly, "No, my friend. If war is here I must return to my people." Grégoire stared. After everything, was he not Heno’s people now? He and he alone? "Surely, there is a place for you with me?" he pleaded. Heno would not meet his eyes. "As your valet? As your slave?" The words hung between them, huge and ugly. Heno shook his head, turned, and walked away, down the long corridor and out into the world beyond, while Grégoire watched, frozen, as something tore inside of him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Captain Dussault secretly gloated when a Chevalier from Paris joined his company as a Lieutenant. Perhaps this time the Generals had acknowledged that Quebecoise officers should lead in Quebec, not the sycophantic lower nobility of the Versailles court. He bore some concern that the newcomer would slow the progress of his hand-picked light unit of scouts and bushmen, but if nothing else a deputy who brewed coffee in the style of the finest Parisian salons could be entertaining.

However, he soon realized that, far from a boon, this assignment entailed a level of daily torment of such magnitude that it could not possibly result from human design, but rather must have been sent from God himself as divine retribution for what enormity of sin Dussault knew not. None of the usual vices applied to Lieutenant Fronsac, and he proved shockingly skilled in tracking, marksmanship, archery, and the sword. The disconcertingly competent Chevalier may even have earned Dussault’s grudging respect had it not been for the questions. The constant, unending litany of questions.

Or at least they were delicately phrased as questions, always quietly conveyed, never quite crossing the line to insubordination. "Captain, have you certainly checked this requisition form for errors?" "Captain, please remind me how we know that this Native scouting party allies with the British?" "Captain, do our standing orders place us at Fort Frontenac in one fortnight or two? Perhaps we have taken the less direct route?" "Captain, don’t these ladies look tired? Perhaps they are late returning to their tribe and even now a party searches for them?"

It was a tricky business punishing an officer, particularly one of the nobility in good standing with the King, but that difficulty multiplied enormously when no code of conduct, no law, no rule of order had officially been broken. For a time Dussault took to assigning the invasive Lieutenant to repeated, unnecessary inventories of the unit’s supplies, but that practice ended abruptly when the appearance of detailed lists and impossible new systems for organizing maize, bullets, and gloves attested to his perverse enjoyment of the task.

Therefore, by the time an opportunity arose to obtain a shipment of sheets and clothes tainted by the pox at a hospital in Quebec City, Dussault had resorted largely to avoidance and subterfuge. He sorted the whole matter through clandestine arrangements with his best scouts before any self-righteous Lieutenants could interfere with nagging questions and watchful eyes which promised to record, catalogue, and remember everything. The scheme worked perfectly, lining his pockets twice as he collected both a fee for disposal of dangerous materials from the hospital, and the natives’ payment. When they returned a fortnight later to finish off the six Mohawk villages he’d targeted, Dussault congratulated himself again for a scheme with nearly endless rewards, as he saw in it a way to finally put the uppity Lieutenant Chevalier into his place.

When they arrived at the first scene of despair, Dussault ordered the unit to halt and walked on ahead, uncharacteristically side-by-side with Lieutenant Fronsac. Upon their first sight of wailing mothers and corpses piling faster than the sick could move to burry them, he leaned close to his deputy and whispered, "Ah, my hospital blankets have nearly done our work for us already, but do not lose heart, we’ll still see action today. It would be remiss should we allow the invalids, babes, and broodmares here to heal, mature, and bear fruit as enemies of the crown." Just as he’d calculated, the first signs of overt revolt swept over the Lieutenant, initially the gasp of horrified disbelief, then a clenched jaw and mutinous gaze that presaged the drawing of his sword, but Dussault had been prepared and he lay his naked blade on the Chevalier’s throat mere seconds after the muscles had tensed to fight. "Yes," Dussault hissed, "I’ve had your measure from the beginning."

Fronsac tipped his chin up, cutting a tiny line across his throat. "And I yours," he said.

Dussault smiled, "Excellent, then let us speak openly. You live in a world of ideal forms, sheltered from the taint of work which makes philosophy into reality. Look closely, because that is the price of France’s glory and today you will pay it." He stepped back, then threw a rifle to Fronsac’s feet. Still standing with his sword unsheathed, Dussault ordered, "Pick it up."

Fronsac glowered. "To kill the sick? To kill women and children? I will not."

"With you or without you we will kill them all." Dussault shrugged. "My men are loyal and the wilderness treacherous and full of savages – you would not have to wait for a tribunal and firing squad in Quebec. But whether you live or die, you cannot alter their fate. Now, pick it up."

They stood locked in a tense tableau, and in that moment Fronsac felt himself to be both alive and dead, saw himself drifting free down a river with Heno, and standing in the middle of a silent village covered in powder and blood. He saw himself melting into the earth, right there, his flesh carried away, his bones weathered down to sand, and he was weak. He fell to his knees in the dirt and grasped the rifle before him.

When he regained his feet he did not look up, and he heard a satisfied chuckle as Dussault called for the men to join them. They made their way into the village and stopped at the first sign of life. Two scouts dragged a woman and her sobbing child out into the open, then Dussault ordered the men to cluster around. "Our First Lieutenant, the illustrious Chevalier de Fronsac, will demonstrate our assignment for the day," he announced to the crowd, and Fronsac shuddered, but the die had already been cast, the moment of decision behind him in the clearing, where perhaps in another life his corpse now rested.

He looked down upon the woman, her eyes delirious with fever but still strong, still fighting, and he looked at the chubby perfection of the baby in her arms. Then he raised his rifle, and fired.

He knew not which of them he hit, or perhaps he told himself that as another shot rang out and they both lay dead, it did not matter. Dussault slapped him on the back and yelled, "Clean it out, then set it to the torch." When the men scattered, Dussault leaned close once again and whispered to him, "It is on your soul now as well," and walked away as savages swarmed everywhere, slaughtering the sick, leaving Fronsac alone with two shrieking phantoms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fronsac awakened from a fitful sleep when a weight abruptly landed atop him, and for one horrifying moment he feared that he embraced a pestilent corpse. But he regained consciousness to find that the chest above him still rose and fell, and his Captain stood at the entrance. "We found this one encamped apart from the others, recovering from a wound. Perhaps they had given him up for dead because they did not provide him a new blanket. If he survives his injuries, you will teach him French. I should like to have an interpreter for the next trade negotiations." Dussault smirked. "I leave him in your care, Lieutenant," he said, then closed Fronsac’s tent flap and departed.

The man above him moaned painfully, and Fronsac carefully rolled him over to lie next to him, gently adjusting the bedding to accommodate two as best he could. He could see very little in the dark, but he made out a tapered nose, slender torso, and hair long and unshorn, unlike those Mohawk warriors they usually encountered. Feeling for fever and gratefully finding none, Fronsac traced the other man’s brow and quietly asked, "Who were you? Did you have brothers, children, a lover in those camps?" but his questions went unanswered as the man did not stir, merely twitched in the uneasy repose of illness.

Fronsac awoke to find dark eyes boring into his sleepy face. Had the other man been healthy Fronsac felt sure he would not have awakened at all. Fronsac shook his head at words he recognized as Mohawk but did not understand, then tried asking, "_Do you speak English_?"

"_Where am I_?" the man replied, "_What happened to my people_?"

"_My name is Fronsac and you’ve been taken by the army of France to receive training as an interpreter_." He stopped abruptly and looked away. Concealing the truth would do no good, but he could not face the man at his side as he said, "_Your people are all dead. We brought the pox, and then murdered the survivors. There are none left, save yourself_."

Fronsac tensed as the man poured his remaining strength into one desperate lunge, but his body failed him and he choked out a string of guttural groans and Mohawk words that sounded like curses. Then he calmed, deathly still, and said, "_When I am well, I will kill you all_."

Fronsac brought himself to return the man’s gaze steadily, "_When you are well, I will not stop you_."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Captain removed Fronsac entirely from the daily activities of the unit. Men left on furtive missions to scout and raid, but Fronsac knew not where, when, or to what ends their activities led. Rather, he devoted himself to carrying food and water and providing a firm arm to lean upon, as strength slowly returned to his patient’s limbs. Though the man winced and stumbled, he held more of his own weight with each passing day, and when he faltered he cast long, pinched looks at the Captain’s tent, and took another step.

Fronsac spoke little, and the other man less, but they began a series of lessons in French, which Fronsac prefaced by saying, "_It is an obscenity for you to learn the tongue of men who killed your family, but I will teach you, for appearances’ sake_." The native man refused to respond or repeat the foreign words, but he remained attentive as Fronsac droned on, "Je suis, vous êtes, il/elle est, nous sommes, ils sont. Je m'appelle Fronsac, et vous?"

Then one beautiful morning, when Fronsac followed a songbird with his sketchpad to a clearing in the woods near their encampment while the native man lay resting in their tent, he came upon a collection of frighteningly familiar crates, each bearing a stamp stained in deep red which said "Contagion."

He couldn’t breathe and swayed precariously, then laboriously gasped and counted ten foreboding crates - ten tribes which would cease to exist in a few short weeks.

Panic wrapped an icily constraining hand around his chest and robbed him of any thought beyond an inchoate will to destroy those boxes by any means necessary. He ran without conscious purpose, and found himself in his tent again, rummaging noisily everywhere for his rifle, his lamp, powder, oil, anything. The other man stirred, asking, "_What has happened_?" Fronsac said nothing and continued gathering supplies, only to have his progress halted by a trembling hand, made firm by sheer resolve. Unwilling to save himself from the man’s piercing regard, Fronsac said, "_There are more crates, more blankets. I am going to do something irrevocable_." Laying his hand atop the native man’s, Fronsac bowed his head. "_I am glad to have known you_," he said, then he gathered oil, powder, and shot, and slipped away.

Back at the clearing, Fronsac encircled the boxes with stones to protect the forest, and watched flames consume the taint of human greed. He piled mounds of earth over the ash as the sun set, and left buzzing insects, creeping toads, and skittering chipmunks to cautiously approach, sanctifying the spot once more.

Striding back toward camp, Fronsac felt again the rush of complete liberty. He smelled the sweet air, sensed the ground cradle his steps, and delighted in the ability of one man, unconstrained by society, to strike a noble blow to an enlightened higher purpose. He smiled, satisfied, as he entered the Captain’s tent, and his own end.

Yet when he lowered the tent flap and readied himself to recite his deeds, he found no eager audience there to pronounce his martyrdom, but instead the native man, face blackened, standing over his unmoving captain with a bloodied knife in one hand. In clipped French the man said "It is done." "For me as well," Fronsac replied, and inclined his head in respect.

He moved to leave and would have retreated to his tent, offering the other man an unimpeded escape, when the knife thudded softly to the ground and the man sank to his knees, collapsing in on himself, strangely deflated. Fronsac approached warily, then kneeled beside the two lifeless bodies, and gathered the native man in his arms. "_They must not find you here_," he urged, but the man remained completely impassive, and Fronsac realized with a start what a fool he’d been, walking through the woods, gliding along with Heno, and imagining himself free. He looked down upon a man with no society, no family, no conceivable constraints, and he saw the horror of complete freedom. With one clean slice the man had freed himself from his one remaining obligation, and he now sat, drained, looking ahead into nothing.

Wrenching himself away from the thought, Fronsac lifted the native man over his shoulder and carried him out of the tent that held his sure death. As Fronsac washed him and led him to the cooking fire, he knew it would be a long journey from the edge of the abyss, but he resolved to carry the other man away from the yawning nothingness as well, one step at a time, for as long as it might take to see him smile. They may have destroyed Captain Dussault’s body and schemes, but true victory required their survival, and more, their joy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Someone raised the alarm hours later upon discovering the corpse, and Fronsac immediately ordered a search of the camp and reinforcement of the watch, asserting that a raiding party must have beset them in the darkness. With Dussault gone Fronsac assumed temporary command, penning a hasty missive to their superiors which he entrusted to a nervous young man who had never appeared completely at ease with Dussault. The formalities complete and the wholly unnecessary strengthened watch installed, Fronsac ordered the body buried and moved his things into the Captain’s tent.

When he guided the native man into the tent ahead of him Third Lieutenant Couillard queried, "Will you keep him as your valet, then?"

Fronsac’s head whipped about painfully, and the native man stood at his side, a heavy, watchful presence. "He is not my valet," Fronsac replied evenly, "nor is he my slave."

The Third Lieutenant frowned in confusion, "What, then?"

"He is my brother," Fronsac said, and his glare forbade any dissent. The Third Lieutenant withdrew, perplexed but silent, and Fronsac held the tent open for his companion who scrutinized him warily, then nodded and entered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fronsac immediately set upon Dussault’s papers, and the lack of any orders corresponding to use of the pox lightened his mood considerably. One beast, acting alone, could be killed, but a beast guided and directed by the powerful presented a far greater challenge.

As Fronsac long suspected, their course veered considerably from the official orders, to the extent that some of the annihilated Mohawk villages may have been French trading partners, not British. Fronsac raised a hand to his temple and closed his eyes. What had been done here would haunt him, always. Nothing could ever expiate it – and perhaps nothing should.

Then, a soft voice in a near perfect mirror of Fronsac’s own intonation said, "Je m'appelle Mani, et vous?"

Fronsac looked up and the native man, Mani, stood before him with a hand outstretched, and beyond him, in the sliver of space left open by the tent flap, light bloomed on the horizon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While they awaited the return of the courier and their new orders, the unit fell into quiet stasis. Fronsac painstakingly reconstructed the course directed in their orders and the unit’s actual path and actions. While the lack of oversight which had allowed Dussault to run so far afield disgusted him, Fronsac was simultaneously grateful for the latitude which permitted a return to his naturalist studies.

On crisp mornings and sun-dappled afternoons, when the sea of paperwork awash in regret threatened to drown him, Fronsac disappeared into the surrounding woods, often accompanied by Mani whose still healing body craved the therapeutic exertion. Mani watched Fronsac gather specimens, make measurements, and chart the course of streams, and sometimes Mani stopped to gather bark and leaves to make his own medicinal teas. Fronsac thought they smelled wretched, but Mani mended, so eventually he began to ask for lessons, how Mani used this or that plant, and they both began shaping their mouths around each other’s words.

However, Fronsac learned the Mohawk word for "hallucinogen" a bit too late, when Mani’s face shimmered above him in triplicate. He took the return of Mani’s sense of humor as a positive sign, but vowed to remain vigilant. Unfortunately for him, Mani knew only too well that Fronsac hungered to learn everything, experience everything, and it was only days later that a handful of orange berries set his skin on fire in sweet tingles which left Fronsac lying on the forest floor, wracked by unexpected, maddening bursts of pleasure, cursing Mani where he sat perched just out of reach, laughing with his head thrown back and his hair in the wind. If Fronsac could have put two thoughts together at the time, he would have called him beautiful.

One afternoon, lying with their heads pillowed on sweet grass, Fronsac trailed a curious fingertip through Mani’s hair and asked, "Why did you not cut it to leave the spirit behind when you went to war? Is that not the custom?"

Mani rolled over bracing his hands at either side of Fronsac’s head so that his own face loomed above, upside-down. "My path lies always with the spirit," he explained.

Eyes widening, Fronsac asked, perhaps too sharply, "You were a priest?"

Mani raised a dubious eyebrow. "Like a priest, I acted as a spiritual leader. Do you wish to convert me into a Catholic?"

Fronsac nearly laughed. "Certainly not," he assured, "your beliefs are your own. But for myself, I prefer to believe only what I observe."

On a soft "hmmmm" Mani shook his head, hair tickling along the sides of Fronsac’s cheeks. "I have seen that you prefer to avoid any hint of ritual when you reproduce the healing teas I’ve taught you. Yet, as a result, your tonics often fail. Whether you speak ritual words and believe them in your heart, ritual actions contain their own knowledge. You have observed it."

Fronsac breathed a sigh in contemplation, extending one hand to smooth a cascade of hair behind Mani’s ear. "Perhaps such things are possible here," he allowed, "or perhaps the miraculous becomes possible with you."

Mani grinned, and then rolled to resume his place with Fronsac at his side. There they stayed for timeless minutes, watching clouds puff by through a perfect azure sky, their fingers a hairsbreadth away from touch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Too soon the courier returned with dire news from the front. He brought no new officer, as none could be spared. Instead, Fronsac found himself promoted to Captain, and orders to rendezvous at Trois-Rivières. The British now sealed the entrance to the St. Lawrence and prepared a siege of Quebec City by sea. French strategy had shifted from woodland ambush tactics to the protection of central assets, and they could ill afford to lose the forges at Trois-Rivières. Captain Fronsac quickly organized the unit for the long march ahead.

Fronsac and Mani regressed to speaking very little in each other’s company, and each morning of the short time it took to pack and prepare for travel, Fronsac expected to awaken to an empty tent. He dreamed achingly of Mani slipping away, past the woods where they’d studied together, far beyond Fronsac’s reach, back to people like his own. Fronsac’s eyes would snap open, searching for Mani’s reassuring presence, relieved to hear a soft snore or find contemplative eyes looking back at him through the dark.

Yet on the morning of departure Mani stood clad in traveling clothes, and though he lingered for agonizing intervals at the entrance to the clearing that once housed their camp, he soon joined Fronsac, and walked with him toward battle.

Even so, as they walked together, slept together, and ate together, silence clung to them. Foreboding built within Fronsac the closer they came to their posting until one night, half-asleep in their tent just outside of Trois-Rivières, he reached out impulsively for Mani and laid his arm around him. Mani tensed, then turned and mirrored the gesture, and they lay awake, each feigning sleep, comforted by the strength of the other’s encircling arm.

Fronsac finally dozed in the wee hours, and then shook off sleep before dawn to find himself plastered to Mani’s body from nose to toes. Everywhere his skin felt hotly sensitized, and when he shifted, his taut cock slid deliciously against an answering hardness. In startled panic he bit back a moan too late, and Mani stirred in his embrace.

Yet neither fear nor fury passed across Mani’s visage. Instead he shifted his body along Fronsac’s then threw his head back and his mouth open in an unvoiced shout. Fronsac gasped in delight, and slid his hand up and down Mani’s smooth back, then leaned forward to capture his lips.

The kiss fueled a frantic momentum, and they slid and jerked against each other while their swift fingers memorized the secret pleasures evoked by ear lobe, clavicle, elbow, and hip bone. In between kisses they inhaled each other’s breath and swallowed each other’s soft cries, pushing one another inexorably toward a precipice which seemed to demand dangerous expression in sound. Finally, days too late and hours too soon, Fronsac slid his hand over the ridges of Mani’s stomach to hold their cocks together, and Mani’s palm reached down to caress the slick heads. A few quick thrusts overwhelmed their yearning bodies, and they came on a burst of long denied passion.

They lay shaking with sweaty foreheads pressed together, until the light of the rising sun brooked no further refusal. Gathering clothes and soap, they sneaked out of camp to the stream where washing became a sweet torture. Their bodies offered glistening landscapes of pleasures yet to be explored, and Mani’s gaze lingered appreciatively along the long planes of Fronsac’s back, ass, and legs, while Fronsac cast furtive glances at the water rolling over Mani’s sturdy shoulders, tight nipples, and heavy cock, dreaming of tracing new paths with his lips and tongue. Yet the bustle of repacking interrupted their mutual scrutiny, and they reluctantly left behind the realm of the skin and senses to rejoin the unit and the path toward combat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Trois-Rivières all was chaos, with French troops recalled from all directions to find a town ill equipped to house and feed them, as well as news of an English force to arrive at any moment. Fronsac reported in to find a frantic huddle of senior officers calculating and recalculating the mathematics of defeat. If "x" reinforcements arrived and "x" number of them must march on to protect Quebec City, how many English troops would take Trois-Rivières? Too few - always too few. They distractedly sent him to shore up the Southwest road into town.

Fronsac busied the men with establishing camp and a laboriously excessive watch as distractions from the delights of returning to town and his own carefully masked knowledge of the impending disaster. Only Mani’s tilted head and arched brow stood witness to the deception. Mani took up a post beside the tent he shared with Fronsac, whittling aimlessly and watching the men work around him. Mani day-dreamed incredulously of this camp emptied by the gathering calamity, and thought of justice.

The charade lifted when Fronsac and Mani retired for the evening, as Fronsac finally slouched under the weight of his own forced optimism the moment their tent flap closed. "It will go badly when the English arrive?" Mani asked, placing a soothing hand against Fronsac’s slumped shoulder. The answer lay already acknowledged between them, but Fronsac nonetheless affirmed, "Indeed."

He sighed, then gestured toward his pack and told Mani, "You’ve been provided with a rifle."

Mani recoiled from him as if struck, "_I will not kill for France_!" he said, and his taut body said, "You should have known."

Fronsac stretched out a pleading hand, "Nor would I ask you to. Only that you carry it, and keep yourself safe."

Mani’s relief robbed him of breath, and he sat heavily. With or without orders he would not fight France’s enemies, but to have Fronsac become the face of such orders felt like another kind of death, and he reeled at the force of his reaction. Fronsac approached and crouched beside him, taking Mani’s hand between his own. He grappled with the question, but finally relented and asked quietly, "Do you know me so little?" Mani leaned close, resting his head on Fronsac’s shoulder. "It is because I know you well that it pained me to believe such a thing of you," Mani replied.

They clutched at each other, thinking of nothing but the uncertain future, and Fronsac wondered fleetingly what had come of Heno, if he stood somewhere along the battlefront awaiting a similar fate, or if he may have already died defending the claims of the French crown. He straightened, and beseeched Mani again, "Promise to keep yourself safe, whatever befalls us." Then, without waiting to hear a response, he leaned forward and sealed the promise to Mani’s lips.

Their tongues tangled around the weighty words, and every time Mani gasped for breath, or perhaps for speech, Fronsac renewed the kiss determinedly, parting only to lift Mani’s shirt. Yet the warm roughness of Mani’s hands slipping into Fronsac’s pants and Mani’s tight nipples beneath Fronsac’s palms weakened his resolve, and he relinquished Mani’s lips to mouth a winding path down the painted curves and points which adorned Mani’s torso. When he reached the enclosures of Mani’s trousers Fronsac strained into the awkward position to rest his cheek upon the growing bulge there. Then he sat up, pushed Mani’s knees apart, and moved to kneel between his outstretched legs.

With fingers made clumsy by haste, Fronsac fumbled at the ties of Mani’s trousers, pressing anxious kisses upon Mani’s taut stomach. At last they pulled apart and Fronsac engulfed the cock that had flitted teasingly through his thoughts since their wash at the stream that morning. The calluses of Fronsac’s thumbs rasped along Mani’s still clothed thighs, which tensed rhythmically around him as Fronsac sucked and pulled every bit of Mani into himself. He licked, and nipped, and ran swollen lips up the underside of Mani’s cock until Mani gasped "Fronsac" above him. Then he paused and asked, "Would you call me Grégoire?" before bending to return to his task, but a swell of pleasure robbed Mani of all linguistic dexterity and he could voice nothing other than garbled pieces of "yes" in three languages until he came on a long sigh, muffled by his own fingers.

As sense returned, Mani found Fronsac still kneeling below him, running his tongue across his lips, with one hand pressed to the juncture of his splayed thighs. A flash of desire dispersed the remains of Mani’s lassitude and he leaned forward to pull Fronsac to his feet and walk him the few long steps to their pallet, leaving his own trousers and Fronsac’s clothes strewn behind them. Fronsac laid himself out, his yearning for touch overflowing into the frantic movement of his hands as they glided across the bedding. Mani followed him down, then tongued along the skin of Fronsac’s shoulder where a puckered line recalled a bear claw, and traced the outline of his own tattoo on Fronsac’s chest, marking the skin with his touch.

Fronsac’s fingers weaved through Mani’s thick hair and followed as Mani descended his body, marking him at neck, rib, and naval with the heat of his breath. When at last Mani moved to lower his mouth Fronsac held his breath, only to groan as Mani bypassed his waiting cock to suck wetly at his inner thigh and run teasing fingers over his testicles, drinking in the faint whimpers and twitches that Fronsac couldn’t suppress. Mani pulled back and raised two fingers to his mouth, flaunting the act that he still withheld. Fronsac arched, gasping at the sight as his head rolled back, but then before he could return his gaze Mani’s mouth was around him and his body spasmed again. Mani waited, licking gently, until Fronsac looked at him once again before lowering his hand and penetrating Fronsac shallowly with one wet finger. Mani watched for signs of distress, but saw only a shocked, hungry want, so he slid the finger inside and wrapped his other hand around the base of Fronsac’s cock to suck in earnest. Fronsac dropped his hands from Mani’s head for fear of hurting him to grasp and pull at the blankets, flooded by sensation at the fulfillment of an ache denied for so many years. He compressed his own lips and bit at his thumb, then gave himself into the keeping of Mani’s strong hands and came silently.

Fronsac, broken open, enfolded Mani in his embrace when he settled next to him. In the haze of sensual fog he fleetingly thought that on the day that he lost this man, as unavoidably he must, he would have no remaining reason to resist the allure of the abyss, but the thought soon flitted away again. As exhaustion claimed him, Fronsac stretched delightfully sore muscles in contentment, and dreamed of the circle of Mani’s arms spiraling out into eternity. Mani watched Fronsac drift off, whispered "I promise," then followed him into sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The alarm sounded early the next morning, and Fronsac emerged, hurriedly half-clothed, to find their position besieged, seemingly from every angle. He dispatched the same nervous young man as a courier to relay their predicament to their superiors within the city, then braced himself to send the men in his charge to their deaths.

The blare and smell of gunfire and agony pressed all around Fronsac while he yelled orders to maintain their position and fire in tandem. Men fell everywhere, and Fronsac recalled that weeks ago he watched the enjoyment that some of them took in slaughtering the weak, and the fracture of others who had fired futilely into the ground and found themselves violently sick outside of six annihilated Mohawk villages. Fronsac fired into the choking smoke and called a retreat, falling back to the higher ground. Settling into tall grasses at the top of the bluff, he watched in numb detachment as the enormous force arrayed against them moved to flank their position and pockets of Mohawk archers advanced along the tree line. Looking up and down the depleted ranks of his bloodied and bedraggled unit, Fronsac ordered a volley which the surrounding army answered to devastating effect.

Raising himself to rally those who remained, Fronsac froze as a shape detached itself from shadow and became a man. Just bellow, there crouched a Mohawk warrior with shorn hair and an arrow readied to let fly. Inside of himself Fronsac shouted to his fingers to lift his rifle, to fight for life. But a part of him deep within which needed more than anything to atone, which still watched Heno walk down that long corridor away from him as Mani inevitably would, strangled that shout and his rifle fell from limp fingers as pain engulfed his chest.

Fronsac fell, and fell, and fell, darkness and light blotting out his vision, memories of cool streams and great forests, quiet drawing rooms and neatly plowed fields, days in sunshine and evenings in shade, flashing behind his eyes. And in the end, he saw Mani, and warmth enclosed his body as he flew, weightless, into forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The piercing sting could not be heaven, yet the comforting hand could not be hell. Fronsac felt vindicated – the church had sorely misrepresented life after death.

He filled his lungs, coughing painfully, and immediately the hand upon him stirred. Drops of tepid, wretched-smelling liquid trickled into his open mouth. His eyes slit open and there above him stood Mani, looking tired, and worn, and so very pleased. Perhaps this was heaven after all.

"What happened?" croaked Fronsac, as he haltingly attempted to sit up.

But Mani held him down, saying, "Don’t try to move. It’s a good sign that you’ve awoken, but you have a long recovery ahead. I found you with an arrow in your chest. You’re in a field hospital."

Fronsac lifted a hand, and though Mani looked at him reproachfully he reached it to tuck Mani’s hair behind his ear. "What of our agreement that you would keep yourself safe?" Then more quietly he mused, "You carried me very far."

Mani caught Fronsac’s hand and returned it to his lap, saying "I will always carry you out of danger – _What is your word in French_? Out of the abyss."

Fronsac looked away, remembering the Mohawk who advanced with the British, surely still encamped frighteningly close. He held Mani’s hand tighter and savored the unwitting commitment in his words. "Always" tasted sweet.

But he could not demand it. "Where will you go now?" he asked. "I've seen the battle plans and the French will not hold for long. You are free. Will you join another Mohawk tribe, return to your people?" Fronsac released these questions in place of the plea, which he bit back painfully when it tried to escape. It cried inside him, "Take me with you! As your valet, as your slave, as anything. Do not leave me here alone! Never leave me."

Mani shook his head and put one hand to Fronsac’s miraculously unpierced heart. "In all the world, you are the only one who knows me now, as I know you. If I should find another tribe who shares my language, shares my stories, I would be a stranger to them. You are my people, as I am yours."

Pain, disapproval, doctor’s wishes, and prying onlookers be damned, Fronsac lunged forward to embrace Mani for one blissful moment before his healing chest and Mani’s protective hands lowered him back down. "Where will we go?" Fronsac eagerly asked. "I will follow you anywhere."

"Then take me to France, Grégoire" Mani said, caressing the name with the rich timbre of his voice, "and there we will explore a great unknown, together in that New World."


End file.
